


Touch the Sky

by Brumeier



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 01:59:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4329492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney doesn't understand John's love of flying, but with a little Ancient tech and some McKay know-how, he'll do his best to give John the sky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch the Sky

Rodney doesn’t understand John’s affinity for flying. For him it’s merely a mode of transport, a quick and easy way to get from point A to point B. And really, given the option he’d rather keep both feet on the ground because flying leads to falling, and not even a genius can lessen the impact of a body plummeting at terminal velocity.

He doesn’t understand it, but he appreciates what it means to John. Which is why he asked the man to come out to the East Pier.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” John holds the pack in his hands. It’s bulky – the shape, not the weight – and molded from the same metal that lines the passages of Atlantis.

“Wear it,” Rodney explains. “But don’t think it on until I tell you, that’s really important.”

He found the pack during a routine sector search of the unused portions of the city. Rodney’s gene isn’t as strong as John’s, well, no-one’s is really, but the pack was practically singing in the back of his mind as soon as he laid eyes on it. _For John_ , it seemed to say. A gift from Atlantis.

Rodney helps John strap the pack on, making sure it’s secure and aligned properly, fidgeting over every detail until John starts to squirm.

“Can we get on with this, McKay?”

“Relax, Colonel Impatience. This hasn’t exactly been field tested, and I’d really hate for you to blow up just because you’re in a hurry.”

John scowls at him. “Please tell me I don’t have some kind of explosive on my back.”

Rodney meets him scowl for scowl. “I’m so glad you think I’d blow you up just for fun. Because clearly I don’t have anything better to do with my time than kill the one person with the strongest ATA gene in the city.”

As if he hadn’t tested the pack one hundred and seven times in his private lab, put it through its paces over and over again before he even thought of presenting it to John. As if he’d take even the slightest chance with John’s life.

“So what does it do?” John asks, his tone and more relaxed body language the only apology he’s going to give. 

Rodney makes sure he’s standing back a step or two before he grins and says, “Think it on.”

The wings unfurl gracefully from the pack, hollow metal framework snapping into place as it extends. The dark gray “feathers” are fabricated from a thin, flexible alloy that Rodney is searching the Ancient database for more information on, and there are straps on the underside of each wing to act as handholds.

Whatever read John is getting off the pack now has wiped the usual bland expression right off his face. He turns bright eyes on Rodney, his mouth already stretched into a wide grin.

“Really?”

“Don’t go too high,” Rodney warns, tossing John a pair of flight goggles. “You’re not outfitted for the colder temps or thinner atmosphere. And keep the channel open, just in case.”

“Right.” He smirks and slips on the goggles, which hide his eyes behind amber lenses. 

Even though Rodney is waiting for it, it still makes him start with surprise when John shoots up off the pier and into the sky. The pack contains a small but powerful fuel cell that helps with lift and propulsion, and Rodney tries – he _really_ does – to maintain scientific objectivity as he observes John soaring through the clear, cloudless sky. He should be monitoring velocity, g-forces, and power consumption, but instead he stands there, mesmerized.

John is magnificent. 

The pack was pretty impressive in the lab, but seeing that eight foot wingspan attached to John is something else entirely. Rodney has long been preoccupied with his friend’s ridiculously attractive person, because only a blind man would be immune to that slouchy, spiky-haired, slim-hipped bastard, but now…now he realizes that he’s moved far beyond mere attraction. His stomach feels fluttery, as if he’s the one doing spins and loops out over the water.

“’I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth’,” Rodney murmurs to himself. “’And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.’”

It’s a bit of a poem he read once, one that stuck with him because of how much it reminded him of John. He forgets that they have an open radio channel between them until John adds to the verse, his voice breathless. 

“’Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth, of sun-spilt clouds – and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung, high in the sunlit silence. Hovering there.’”

Aside from one initial whoop of delight as he took to the skies, this is the first thing he’s said and his voice is fairly thrumming with excitement. Happiness. Pleasure. Rodney’s never heard John like that before and it pulls at something inside him. He was able to do that, able to give John that, but instead of feeling smug he only feels left behind. For one brief moment he wishes they could be up there together, that he could be part of something that means so much to John, but he knows that if he were all he’d feel was fear. His feet belong on the ground.

And then Rodney’s breath catches in his throat as John starts climbing, wings spread wide like he might be riding a thermal. “Not so high,” he whispers, suddenly afraid. What if something goes wrong with the pack and John crashes into the sea, like Icarus? Rodney, who usually thinks ahead to every disaster, didn’t plan for that one, hasn’t got a ‘jumper on standby.

He’s breathless for a wholly different reason a second later, when John is momentarily silhouetted against the sun, wings spread like some sort of ancient god offering a blessing – the real deal, not one of the glowy-eyed false gods they’re so familiar with. It’s something Rodney suspects will become private fantasy fodder for a long time to come.

“Incoming,” John says over the open channel. It’s the only warning Rodney has before John pulls the wings in and drops like a stone.

“No! Are you crazy? What are you doing? Pull up!” Rodney puts his hands up, as if he could stop John’s too-fast descent by sheer force of will alone. “Colonel! This is no time for –”

He yelps and ducks as, at the last minute, John snaps the wings back out and sails over Rodney’s head, so close Rodney could’ve reached out and touched him.

“Oh my God, is this what you were like during flight training? You’re insane! This isn’t _Top Gun_ , you idiot!”

“ _Top Gun_ was Navy,” John replies. He circles around and then lands on the pier, stumbling just a bit on the dismount. The wings retract into the pack, and he stands there, panting. “That was fucking amazing.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking, strapping wings on you,” Rodney gripes to cover his relief at having John back on solid ground. “You take too many risks, Colonel.”

“You talk too much, Dr. McKay.”

“What are you –” 

What John does is move into Rodney’s personal space in a very determined way, sliding the goggles up to reveal hazel eyes gleaming. His face is still shining with the joy of flight. Rodney backs up as far as he can, until he’s at the edge of the pier and another step would have him falling into the sea.

“Colonel,” he says a bit desperately.

“Rodney,” John replies, seconds before grabbing hold of Rodney’s shoulders and capturing his lips in a kiss just as decisive as his steps had been.

Rodney thinks it’s very possible he’s having a stroke. John is _kissing_ him, licking into his mouth, and suddenly it’s like a slide show is going off in his head:

_“I brought you lunch. Don’t work too hard.”_

_“You need to work on your stance. Like this.”_

_Movie nights. Chess games. Race cars. John pushes him off the balcony, grinning like a loon._

_“You can do it, Rodney. You’re the only one who can.”_

_John fixing math equations in the lab. John rubbing the back of his neck. Lollipops and Johnny Cash and does he ever play that guitar?_

_“Not prime.”_

_John flying the nuke to the Hive ship. John single-handedly taking on the Genii. John’s heart stopping in the ‘jumper._

_John silhouetted against the sun, perfect and beautiful and so at home in the sky._

And then John starts to pull away, no doubt reacting to Rodney’s own lack of reaction, and his brain snaps back to attention.

“John,” he breathes, pulling the man back by the straps on the pack. 

This kiss is messier, hotter, full of John’s joy and Rodney’s awe and a friendship deepening into something more, something bigger. Something Rodney has only fantasized about in the secret, dark corners of his own mind.

“I flew,” John gasps in his ear when they finally pull apart, still holding tight to each other but no longer kissing. 

“You’re going to give me heart failure,” Rodney says fondly.

“Sorry.” But John doesn’t sound sorry. He sounds like someone already planning his next flight. That’s all well and good, but so is Rodney. He knows more than one way to make John fly and, judging by the length of heat pressed against Rodney’s hip, it won’t be difficult to make it happen.

Rodney nudges at John’s face until his lips are back in range. This time the kiss is soft and slow, a promise of things to come. John makes a noise low in the back of his throat, a needy sound that makes something turn over in Rodney’s chest.

He doesn’t understand John’s affinity for flying, but that’s okay. He understands John, and he’s pretty sure it’s a mutual thing. He’s pretty sure it’s _everything_.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** Just an idea I had ages ago, that I brought out into the light of day thanks to it being wingfic trope day over at [ You Should Be Writing ](http://ushobwri.livejournal.com/).
> 
> The poem that Rodney and John recite is High Flight, by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Artwork for Touch the Sky by Brumeier](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4371401) by [danceswithgary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceswithgary/pseuds/danceswithgary)




End file.
